Maybe I'll Look Into Those Hair Plugs

It’s late at night, and I’m on one of my infamous YouTube binges. Frankly, I was hoping to find more Todd Snider postings, particularly since he has this new album out and all, called Peace Queer. So I watched what there was of Todd Snider, and then jumped over to Robert Earl Keen. There, I was reminded that I missed another Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, and I made sure I have that written down on my list of things to do before I die. I watched some other REK postings, and then saw this one of him singing “Walking Cane” at this year’s Austin City Limits, (I added “Go to Austin City Limits Festival” to my list), and noticed, as I have before, only this time more enviously, that REK has a really good full head of hair.

For lack of more hair and a smaller nose, I would look like REK. I have a goatee, kind of like he does, sprinkled with gray. We both have “full” faces, with big warm smiles, we are about the same size, and we seem to like the same books and music. I think our speaking voices even sound a lot a like. Of course there are differences, starting with the fact that I enjoy living in Tennessee and he did not.

Not that I want to be an REK look-a-like or anything, it’s just that, well, you know how you look at someone and say “I could look like REK a lot easier than I could look like, say Keith Urban.” You know how that is, right. No? I’m the only one? Oh. Well, um, now I’m embarrassed and envious.

Anyway, my point is that he has nice thick wavy hair and my hair looks more like a cross between Tommy Womack and Steve Earle.

(Photos courtesy of Ron Baker)

I saw Tommy Womack recently at the Southern Festival of Books. It was a windy, humid day, and TW’s hair did a lot of standing up that day, which served to emphasize its thinness. Each morning for a week after that, I would look at myself in the mirror and think, “Hey, it’s Tommy Womack hair on a fat guy.”

My son has thick hair. My dad has thick hair. I’ve never seen a picture of my grandfather, so maybe he has thin hair. I actually tend to blame all the headphones I used to wear, with the plastic bar crossing over my head rubbing off my hair like so many feet beating down a path through the grass, from the time I was a teenager until just about five years ago, when I either discovered earbuds, or noticed that REK has a lot of hair and I don’t—I’m not sure which of those came first.

I have this really cute blonde chick who cuts my hair, named Stephanie. (Think skinny Miranda Lambert). Anyway, when she first cut my hair, she said how much she likes to cut short hair, and I assumed she was hitting on me, and I thought “Hey, I’m going have to come back here again.” Then she suggested a shampoo called Nioxin I could use that would thicken my hair, and I realized she was just trying to pump me for money, but still thought “Hey, I’ll have to get some of that.” I kept saying the name over and over in my head, “Nioxin, Stephanie, Nioxin, Stephanie…” because I’ve never remembered the name of a hair-cutting-girl for long enough to either schedule an appointment or ask for her again. Then she said this Nioxin costs like 45 bucks for a bottle, and oh I could get it cheaper at Target, but you shouldn’t buy “professional products” from a place like Target because they didn’t come with the “salon guarantee”. So, I don’t know. Looking at these pictures of Tommy Womack and Steve Earle, though, I might have to eat beans two nights a week and spring for the Nioxin.

This second video illustrates REK’s professionalism. Notice how Nancy Griffith makes the comment about the ladies lining up to see him in Ireland, and that he was known as “most handsome”. Notice also how he doesn’t respond in words, although his facial expressions clearly say “Umm…, Nancy, ix-nay on the omments-cay about the omen-way, and the andsome-hay.” Then, he launches into his song, that has a lot of words, a lot of strumming, and a quick tempo, all the while thinking of how he is going to reconcile Nancy’s statement here to what he told Kathleen (his wife) about the trip, which was “Aw, honey, it was just a bunch of ex-pat Aggie frat boys, yelling for me to play Copenhagen.”

I Never Thought I'd Post About Sugarland

In the process of writing one blog post about REK and hair plugs (for me, not REK), I started looking for a video of Steve Earle to serve as an illustration for the Mythical Reader of the Long Lunch blog about what my hair looks like. In the process of looking for such a video—I was really looking for one with Steve and Allison Moore performing at the 2008 Americana Festival, because that is where I was treated to a “top-down” view of Steve’s head and is where I first made the connection that my hair looks more like Steve Earle’s than Robert Earl’s—I instead learned that Sugarland had written a song about Steve Earle. So here it is. Sorry, there aren’t any really good videos.

Here’s the thing—and I know Wife is tired of hearing me comment on this, so I try hard to keep quiet—I actually want to like Sugarland. I like most of their songs, and Jennifer Nettles is easy on the eyes. She has a good voice in my book, recognizing that I don’t mind a little whine in my chick sangers, and also recognizing that she’s not to some people’s taste. So, as I said, here’s the thing: A) the guy, Christian is his name I believe, needs to grow a pair and be a man and B) in the current structure, they are not a duo; rather, Jennifer Nettles is a solo artist and the guy is her guitar player. That’s it.



As for A), I submit case in point from the Sugarland-Bon Jovi Cross Roads. Left to right, there is Richie Sambora playing this huge guitar (on some songs he’s actually playing a double neck guitar) and making that wah-wah noise with his mouth, and he’s standing there like he’s got a big boat, to borrow a phrase from Tommy Womack. Then there’s Nettles with her cute bouncing boobs in her camesole with her nicely shaved arm pits exposed for the world to appreciate, belting out songs with Jon Bon Jovi, who is also decked out like a rock-star because he is one. Then there’s poor Christian, jumping all over the stage with his little ukelele, or mandolin, whatever it is, that’s like half the size of the instrument Sambora is lugging around. Christian, man, you must have missed a meeting or something, because certainly you would see the way this is set up, and say, no thank you to the mandolin, dude, I’m going to stand here in one spot, preferably on top of something so I tower over Sambora and look down Nettle’s shirt, and I’m going pound this standup acoustic bass guitar like I own the freaking place. If you want someone to play a mandolin, give it to Sambora.

As for B), I think I’ve only heard a male voice in one Sugarland song on the radio, and that’s recently, and I suspect that’s because the CMA said that if Christian didn’t start taking more of a presence, they could kiss the duo category good bye. You know Brookes & Dunn, and Montgomery-Gentry have to be lodging complaints by the hour with the Country Music Association about how Sugarland shouldn’t be in the category as them. Now, I have never listened to a Sugarland album, for fear of being barred from buying a 2009 Americana Festival Music Showcase armband next year, so maybe Christian knocks it out on all the songs they don’t put on the radio, but I somehow doubt it.

Seriously, dude, Christian, comment back to this blog, and we can meet in downtown Nashville, maybe at Manny’s in the Arcade and we can talk this out while you buy me a pizza roll. I’ve got lots of ideas, and a video shoot where there’s a scene where you get Neddle’s in the sack and you’re all manly and stuff. Also, I have some suggestions for REK songs you guys should record, and you can tell Neddle’s to hum along in the background.

* * * * *

Music I’m Listening to Now: Jerry Jeff Walker, Night After Night on Rhapsody.com, because I saw a YouTube clip of Todd Snider singing “Don’t It Make You Want to Dance”, which got me in the mood to hear the JJW version on this particular album.
What I’m Reading Now: The Town, by William Faulkner.

Sleep is for Quitters

So anyway, I’m flying back from London, and this guy a few rows in front of me is wearing this shirt that says “Sleep is for quitters”, and I’m thinking “Dangit, I want that shirt.” I really hate sleep; it seems like such a waste of time. It seems like just when I’ve got the day going the way I want it, I have to pause and go to sleep. You know how people say “We can put a man on the moon, but we can’t” followed by what it is that day that’s hacking them off. Well, I feel that way about sleep.
And I haven’t been able to find that shirt, but I’ll keep looking.
I’ve had a lot going on lately, and I’ll try to make it interesting and post some of it. Actually, as you may know if you look at any other posts on this blog, I’ll prolly post it even if I can make it interesting.
Just to cover the highlights:
· Wife and I went to a CD release party at Grimey’s for Grayson Capps.
· I have been exposed to Beatle Bob, at the Mercy Lounge, during the Kane Welch Kaplin show as part of the Americana Festival Music Showcases.
· Wife and I went to the Americana Awards Festival. Amazingly, we sat close to Beatle Bob. Jason Rittenburg and the Scorchers were there, too, among many others. I learned that Steve Earle is one of the luckiest, overachieving men alive, and is ultimate proof that being a poet and musician will make up for a lot of physical deficiencies. I know this because he made sure I knew it by kissing Allison Moorer on the mouth on stage.
· Wife and I saw Bruce Robison at the Station Inn and then Cross Canadian Ragweed at the Cannery Ballroom, also as part of the Americana Festival Music Showcases.
· Bought tickets to the REK/Todd Snider November 20 show at the Ryman within 15 minutes of the tickets going on sale, and still somehow wound up on like the fifth from the last row in the balcony.
· Wife and I went to London for personal vacation. I did not constantly sing “England Swings” while there, probably because I was too focused on trying to figure out where I was all the time.
· Family and I went to Orange Beach during fall break.
But now we are back from all that and reality is setting in that the price of aluminum is dropping fast (important to me in my line of work), and hard times are coming. So, I’ll probably have more time to write meaningless blog postings now that I have to stay at home more. At least as long as we can pay the cable bill, which of course makes me appreciate this poster from despair.com. Appreciate. Not buy.